KEHOE HOPING TO GET MURDER CONVICTION OVERTURNED

A lawyer for a white supremacist sentenced to life in prison for the murders of three members of an Arkansas family argued before a panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court on Friday. He says the organization Chevie Kehoe was accused of running never existed.
Attorney Jay Thomas Sullivan said that without the existence of the Aryan Peoples Republic, federal prosecutors had no jurisdiction to try Kehoe for the murders of three Arkansans.
Kehoe says his federal murder convictions should be overturned and Sullivan says retrying Kehoe could be double-jeopardy.
Federal prosecutor Dan Stripling said there was ample evidence and testimony that Kehoe and his organization committed crimes including murder to further their objective of creating a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest.
The three-judge panel did not issue a ruling from the bench.
Danny Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, and Kehoe were both convicted in the 1996 murders of a Pope County family. Lee was sentenced to death.
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)